Statement of the Commissioner for Human Rights on the occasion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day
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Statement of the Commissioner for Human Rights
on the occasion of
the International Holocaust Remembrance Day
January 27 is the date, when the International Holocaust Remembrance Day is commemorated. This day, in 1945, the Auschwitz – Birkenau concentration camp was liberated. The place, which will always remain a symbol of evil that a man may do to another man, being driven by hatred, prejudices and contempt.
Today, I would like to pay tribute to all victims of that crime.
Holocaust did not start upon opening of the Auschwitz concentration camp, such as the anti-Semitism did not end upon the camp’s liberation. The tragedy was preceded with racists and anti-Semitic propaganda, and gradual deprivation of the Jewish society of their citizen rights and its rightful place in the social, cultural and economic life. These events should be a warning for all of us.
It could seem that vastness of Holocaust atrocities will remove the concepts and opinions promoting racism or xenophobia, calling for hatred, from the social life once and for all. Unfortunately, it does not happen. The Commissioner’s office records an increasing number of cases including calling for hatred in terms of national, ethnic or religious origin, or public insulting of the persons because of their origin. Perpetrators of such attacks often refer to racists and anti-Semitic narration. Even in Poland, a country, which was experienced by the Nazi crime especially deeply, there are still certain groups spreading the Nazi ideology and using the Nazi symbols.
The state should react firmly, employing all existing legal measures, on any premises of such an ideology. Furthermore, we need to keep on preserving the memory of the Holocaust victims, especially among the young generations. We should remind on all circumstances that led to that Crime. We need to strive for a situation, where any attempt to trigger hatred or contempt, or even to establish an unreasonable anxiety towards persons of different cultural, national or ethnic identity, is met with a clear and firm objection expressed by the society.